MUMBAI, DEC 6: Anup Deshmukh of LIC jumped into the lead with five points as he defeated former National champion, International Master Ponuswamy Konguvel of ONGC in the fifth round of the Young Challengers-organised Independence Cup Chess Tournament being held at the Andheri Sports complex here today.In a major upset, Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay of Union Bank was humbled by Atanu Lahiri of LIC.
Deshmukh, who finished fifth in the Nationals and represented the country in the recent Chess Olympiad at Elista, played the Queen Pawn and Konguvel replied with the King's Indian Defence. Deshmukh played a few wrong moves but Konguvel failed to punish him, playing a few unsound sacrifices himself of a few exchanges and a pawn. Deshmukh closed out the position and won thereafter.
LIC players are having a gala of time. If Deshmukh is in the lead and Atanu stunned Thipsay, it was young Sriram Jha who joined two others in the second position with 4.5 points.
Top seed Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua was held to a draw,by IM Sudhakar Babu.Points position: Anup Deshmukh (2430 International rating points) -- 5 points; Sudhakar Babu (2335), Atanu Lahiri (2310) and Sriram Jha (2330) -- 4.5; Dibyendu Barua (2540), Ponnuswamy Konguvel (2410), V Saravanan (2390), Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary (2190), S M Sinha (2120), Shekar Chandra Sahu (2290), N Sanjay (2285), Arghydip Das (2170), N Neelakantan (2260), SJ Kamath (2240), HM Sharma (2125) -- 4.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Printer-friendly page